


What Might Have Been

by BryroseA



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon, F/M, No adultery, Sisters, and Rewind AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryroseA/pseuds/BryroseA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hamiltons, both canon and AU, and their oh so normal family dynamics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Helpless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloodbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodbright/gifts).



> For bloodbright; Happy Yuletide!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting: 1786 - during the period covered by Non-Stop, three years before Hamilton becomes Treasury Secretary.

 

He’s different in the daytime than in the night. At night, he’s a warm heart beating against hers; he’s teacher and student, a blazing hearth. In the day he’s…

He’s pacing again.

Eliza sets another stitch in the elaborate “H” on the handkerchief she’s embroidering, watching as her husband, elegant in a bottle green coat that's a little too formal for the afternoon, walks back and forth in front of the big picture window in their sitting room. His lips move silently, and agitated fingers tapping out the rhythm of whatever speech he’s running through his head on his breeches.

_Tap. Tap tap. Taptaptap._

A hopeful, uptilting rhythm. A speech of welcome, maybe.

He takes the turn at the far end of the window in front of her and she looks up, trying to meet his eye, judge his train of thought. The weak afternoon sun through the wavy glass highlights him in a back glow of bronze, like one of the figures in the stained glass at Trinity Church. But he's not frozen. It's been months since she's seen him in the middle of the day like this; long hours at the law practice, the state congress in Albany, his upstairs office, they all beckon more compellingly than her cozy front sitting room. This afternoon should feel like a rare treat, but instead his presence has her slightly off balance. She'd feel better if she could get a read on him. Understand whatever it is he's scripting out. Understand what is about to happen. But he’s lost and far away.

In the early days of their marriage she’d interrupt him when he got buried in his own head, _“What are you thinking about? What are you writing?”_

Alex would stop and explain, words tumbling out of him, stacking up on each other, like the notes of the new Haydn sonata she’s been struggling to master; discordant chaos until the center—the heart of it all—becomes clear, then pure as truth. She would chase his ideas as they sped past her, and he’d explain, and explain, and explain, half in his mind, half with her, and then stay up long into the night, scribbling furiously.

Better to let him be there, in his head, composing, and then get the best of him--his full focus--when he’s done. Alexander’s full focus is more intense than anything else she’s ever experienced in her life and she craves it. Gets it, too.

Just not in the middle of the day. 

So Eliza returns her attention to the embroidery, watching out of the corner of her eye, his fingers drumming, his lips moving, a comforting cadence. The rhythm of her life.

_Taptap. Tap._

“He’s here.”

Startled, Eliza looks out at the front walkway of the house, visible through the sitting room window. A lean figure in gray clumps toward their door. She’d been listening for the sound of coach wheels, but he must have walked.

Alexander takes three long strides to the door, flinging it open.

“James.” There is a world of emotion in his greeting: memory and trepidation and anxiety.

Eliza sets her embroidery aside and stands, brushing her skirts off, suddenly nervous at this meeting of her unknown brother-in-law. James Hamilton, carpenter, of St. Croix.

Late last night, exhausted in the private world of their bed, Alexander had spilled out his fears to her--what if he didn’t recognize him, this older brother he hadn’t seen in twenty years? What would he say? What did James want? What if he’s in trouble—will he accept help?

James bows, “Sir.”

“James,” Alexander says, his voice chiding. He seizes his brother by the shoulders and pulls him in for a hug. “Good to see you, man.”

The introductions are awkward. Eliza starts forward to embrace this new-found family member, but James is caught in a stiff half-bow. The head bob of a servant, rather than the courtly sweep of a gentleman.

He titters—an unexpected sound—and holds out a tremulous hand instead, which she shakes firmly, feeling the minute snag as the edges of his callouses catch on her gloves.

Alex sweeps an arm around his brother’s shoulders and leads him to one of the wing chairs by the fire. Rather than sit, himself, he hovers over James, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You were supposed to be here hours ago.”

“I got lost coming from the docks. New York is so…big. You wrote about it, but I never pictured…”

Alex laughs, slapping his brother’s back and eliciting a wince. “Man, when I first got here I got lost six times just trying to find the boarding house. People everywhere, fast paced. You’re going to love it.”

James looks blank.

Eliza leans forward, eager to draw him in. “New York is the greatest city in the world.”

Alex’s hands wave expressively as he picks up the thread. “It’s the harbor—everything flows through us; and if we’re smart, we’ll keep it that way. You remember what I wrote you about our commerce clause?" He doesn't pause for an answer. "Listen, I was at Albany last week, the state assembly, and they _tried to vote it down_. Jamie, you won’t believe how trifling some of these so-called ‘revolutionaries’ are. Why _shouldn’t_ we open ourselves up to wider trade, strengthen our position in the world?" He pushes his face forward, right into his brother's, looming over the seated man. " _You_ know St. Croix—small, backwards, isolated—well this city ain't that, even if some of those 'visionaries' want it to be. We will  _not_  be just another stop off port for France or England, under the thumb of a crown.”

He takes a deep breath in and Eliza recognizes it as preparation for the second verse. He's in full flow now, flush warming his cheeks, eyes sparkling and alive. Eliza feels the familiar thrill as his passion catches her up and bears her along. James, on the other hand, is hunched back in his seat; Alex is overwhelming his brother. Surely he understands how special Alex is? Eliza’s looks down to find her hand curled absently around her stomach.

Alex smacks his hand on the back of James's wing-back chair with a dull thump. “Lord _knows_ , if we don’t take action it will all come undone. But the assemblymen—Morris, Yates, Lancaster—they’re indecisive and scared. Taxes are an anathema to them, a bad word. Morris _actually suggested_ that, as a Republic, we do away with taxes. Fucking delusional! Pandering to the idol of popularity. We need _more_ financial stability, not less, and—Oh!” Alex grips James’ shoulder. “You haven’t seen my bank yet! The Bank of New York. Just opened two years and already issuing more stable money than the continental congress. I have a board meeting tomorrow, you can come with.”

“That sounds…” James clears his throat. “Um, you wrote that you had children?”

Alexander grins, so brilliant its seductive, and, for the first time, James leans in toward his brother, finally drawn in by Alex’s enthusiasm in that way she’s so used to seeing. And Alex is off again, doing the quick rundown summary of the family. The latest exploits of little Phillip—over visiting his Church cousins—and baby Angelica—upstairs, asleep in the nursery. Of their new secret, the fluttering heartbeat that is currently thickening her waistline, he says nothing.

Eliza studies her heretofore mysterious brother-in-law. Unbidden, Angelica’s description of a mutual acquaintance springs to mind. _A cautionary tale: why we don’t stuff scarecrows with potatoes._ Tall and gangling, but oddly lumpy, dressed in plain broadcloth. James Hamilton is only two years older than Alexander, but he looks...grey. Worn. It must be a hard life. A carpenter. She’s never really encountered one before. Well, talked to one. Been related to one.

She shifts in her chair, attention drawn to a small rent in the seam of James’ coat, just under the elbow. Phillip’s coats strain there too. She could fix that, if he’d let her.

Across the room, the conversation has loosened a bit, shaking off the rust of decades of next-to-no contact. James laughs at a sally of Alexander’s and asks about his law practice. Alex still has a hand resting affectionately on his brother’s shoulder, but it seems more welcome. Less of an intrusion. While talking with James, his voice has somehow both broadened and raised slightly, taking on the tiniest tip-tilted hint of what Eliza realizes with wonder must have been his boyhood accent.

“ _Practice_ the law, bro? I practically perfected it. I’ve got two, three, young clerks studying under me now.”

Eliza sticks her oar into the conversation again. “Increasing the rat population of New York to abominable bounds.”

The two men turn to her and smile. James has a slightly crooked face, one eyebrow resting a little higher than the other over his deep-set eyes, It gives his every expression the look of a baby being introduced to solid food for the first time: perpetual amazement at the complexity of the world.

Alexander finally leaves his position hovering over his brother to come sit next to her on the chaise. As he lowers himself, he registers the hand on her stomach and flashes her an intimate smirk.

“Alexander has been catching you up on himself.” From the way her husband ducks his chin briefly Eliza knows he hears the _monopolizing the conversation_ she was carefully trying not to say. “I want to hear about _you_. Are you married, sir? Do I have a sister-in-law?”

“Ah, no, Mrs. Hamilton…” James pauses, a strange expression on his strange face. She can feel her heart contract in sympathy—how long it must have been since he’s said that name. “I’m not married. I thought, once, but...no.”

Alex leans forward in his seat, his own coat straining across his shoulders, “You should stay in the area. Let me hook you up with a few ladies. Eliza’s sister throws the best parties, I’m sure we could have you…”

Eliza tunes out part four of the monologue. She has always wondered, desperately, about Alex’s early life. The family he talks about so little. So much of his world is closed to her—things she can’t be a part of—that she delights over the memories he has dropped, hoards them over and counts them like jewels on a string.

Sucking sugar raw from the cane, mouth-puckeringly sweet.

The waltz his father hummed when he hitched up the horses.

And, quietly, in the depths of a dark night after they’d both been terrorized by Phillip’s first bout with the croup, polished amber memories of his mother, frozen in time. First, brilliantly alive, but lined with years of bitterness.  Then, dying, choking on her own vomit, inches from him. Finally, still and white and grimly beautiful, but not at peace, never at peace.

All confidences in the confessional of their bedroom, never repeated or alluded to in the light of day. Evidence of the thing she’s most valued from their first meeting: his heart. So big and overflowing and generous, although it is sometimes—

She checks back in on the conversation; Alex is still talking.

—often overshadowed by the near-equal generosity of his mouth.

Eliza brushes a hand down her husband's forearm, a light reminder, and he winds his thoughts up with a plea to James. “You’ll stay, right? In the city, I mean.”

It hurts, almost, to see him this pathetically eager. He looks like Phillip begging for a bedtime story. _Tell me more. Tell it all. Stay with me just a little longer_.

“I...yeah. I would like to, yes.” James leans forward in a posture that nearly mirrors his brother’s, but with his elbows resting on his knees instead of on the arms of his chair. “You’ve come a long way, Alexander.” He looks around the small but comfortable sitting room, eyes lingering on the ornately framed miniatures of herself and the children that sit on the side table.

“And so’ve you, James.” Alex says lightly. “It’s a long way from the islands.” He tilts his head. “What brings you here anyway? I’ve been asking you for years…”

In the ensuing pause, a chunk of the log blazing away in the fireplace cascades to its doom in a shower of sparks.

James straightens up and the tenor of his voice changes, becomes almost business-like. Rehearsed. “I understand you received a bequest from Pop’s will.”

Suddenly, Eliza’s heart sinks, leaden, and lodges somewhere behind her breastbone.

_Oh no. No no no._

“Yes, of course I did.” Alex’s gaze sharpens on his brother, and this doesn’t seem to be quite as much a surprise to him as it is to her. “You did too, according to the letter the solicitor wrote me.”

“I did.” James’s reddens as he works through words, halting, stumbling. “I would...I think...I feel that I am—”

“James.” The warning plea in Alex’s voice is heartbreaking.

James stands, turns and faces the fireplace, speaking his pronouncement to their andirons. “I feel that I am owed that whole bequest.”

Beside her, Alex stiffens and then stands. She makes to follow him up, but he puts a staying hand on her shoulder, then moves toward his brother.

“Why?” He tosses the challenge down like a glove.

“You know why.”

“Why?” At this second, more slow and deliberate, enunciation, James turns around. His crooked baby-face is mottled an odd puce color.

“Because he—you weren’t. Because Ma—”

“ _Don’t_ , James. Don’t say it." She's never heard him sound quite this dangerous. "Keep her name outta your mouth right now.”

“But everyone—”

“Don’t!” It comes out as a roar. Alex’s face goes stark white and then flushes an ugly crimson. He moves forward, long strides that eat the room, until he is pressed right up against his much taller brother, chest to chest. James, alarmed, backs up a few steps, but Alex follows, backing his cringing brother into the literal corner.

His words are bitten off, forceful. “Don’t you _ever_ talk about that again. Here, in my home, in front of my WIFE!”

James sends an angry, panicked look over Alexander’s shoulder at her. Eliza can see that he’d forgotten she was even in the room.

As their eyes connect, she finally sees it—the similarity between the two men she’d been unconsciously searching for: their eyes light the same color in anger. Her heart is pounding, slow and thick in her breast and she stands in a rustle of skirts. “Mr. Hamilton, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave now. We have other engagements this afternoon.”

Alex backs up, clearing her line of sight to James, who takes a deep gulping breath in, as though he’d been choked. He looks in confusion from her to Alexander, thwarted, as men so frequently are, by the niceties of social convention. Eliza stands firm, secure on her ground as hostess. _Get out get out get out of my house. I can’t fix this until you get out._ He needs to leave soon, or the tell-tale heavy breathing Alex is doing through his nose will erupt again and god knows what un-fixable damage will be done.

He bows, the awkward half bob again. “Your obedient servant, madam. Sir.” And makes for the door.

Eliza heads straight for her husband as the door closes. He leans into her seeking arms for the barest instant before he shrugs her away.

“Alex.”

“Bet, I can’t. I…”

Her stomach is a hollow pit  and her hands feel empty and purposeless. Eliza closes her eyes then opens them with the solution.

“Phillip is at Angelica’s. I need to go pick him up. You’ll come with me.”

It’s not a question, because she knows the answer.

 

XXXXX

 

Angelica and her husband, John Church, have taken a house on Broadway a few blocks away; a lease, in preparation for their imminent move to London. Phillip, six years old, considers the Church house and his two slightly younger Church cousins the be-all end-all of entertainment, and frequently begs to go over there. Today, with the prospect of James’ visit looming, it had seemed like a smart idea not to have him underfoot.

When they arrive at Angelica’s to pick their son up, the sounds of boys hollering are audible before the front door even opens.

“Daddddyyy!” Phillip comes flying into Angelica’s front parlor, clutching a long stick in one hand, and trailed closely by his similarly armed cousins. He throws himself at his father’s legs, then ducks behind them, using Alexander as a bulwark from behind which he wields his ‘sword’ at the other boys.

“We playin’ lawyers,” he insists, breathlessly, “like YOU!”

Alex had barely held it together in the carriage—maybe the only time in their marriage she’s seen him turn inward rather than out with anger. She’d been expecting a furious diatribe but all she got was fulminating silence. His heart and mind closed to her. Now he’s got Phillip’s solid weight leaning on him, fingers clinging to his breeches.

“Lawyers, huh?” Alexander says, his voice a little hoarse, as he looks down at his son, then across at his tiny co-combatants. All three boys and sticks are smeared with mud. “Seems about right.”

Phillip detaches himself from his father. “Le’s go,” stick thrust, “The def’dant needs me!” With a whoop, Angelica’s oldest leads the pack out of the room at a dead run.

“Walk!” Angelica hollers, with no noticeable effect. As the noise dies away into the distance, she turns to Eliza and Alex and says, dryly, “I’m thinking of getting them all Blackstone’s _Commentaries_ for Christmas.”

“Sorry, Jel.”

“Eh,” She shrugs broadly. “So...how was—” at the last minute, she catches Eliza’s head shake behind Alex’s back and shifts tacks skillfully mid-sentence. “—the last assembly meeting in Albany? I haven’t had a chance to hear about it.”

Eliza watches her sister scan her husband, understanding lighting her eyes. Angelica reaches out and Alex extends his hand; palm to palm they touch, briefly. Then Angelica sets a light hand on the his waist and he allows her to steer him toward the couch.

“Tell me,” she insists, the demand open enough that he can take it in any direction he chooses.  Alexander settles next to her, their heads tilt together and, no surprise, he chooses politics.

“It’s such weak shit, Ang. They’re just a bunch of corrupt war mongers, ‘bout to go to war with New Jersey and Massachusetts rather than sign on to my tax plan.”

The conversation takes on the familiar rhythm of their customary political fencing as he outlines his import tax proposal for Angelica’s knowledgeable audience. Eliza can feel the pit in her stomach settling a bit. She wanders over to a small settee by the fire. In a work basket by her feet is an embroidery project, clearly abandoned for some time, if the dust settled on it is any indication, but bearing Angelica’s trademark precision stitching and eclectic color choices. Smiling, she unwinds a skein of thread and sets about carefully working in the purple stem of a daisy, while, across the room, the volume grows.

“They voted you down? Who was it this time?” Angelica demands.

He rolls his eyes. “Lansing and Yates, stingy assholes. On again about states’ rights and preserving the liberty of New York. They’ll preserve us right into the grave. We _must_ support a federal Congress, or else what was it all for?” Eliza mouths the next words along with him. “You’d think they never fought in the war.”

Angelica throws her head back in exasperation and Alex reaches up to tweak back a soft coil of her hair.

“Alex, they’re in Governor Clinton’s pocket.”

“So? Fat old goat. _He’s_ no better.” He adopts a fatuous “Clinton” tone and quotes from memory. “I have confidence that the harmony and friendship of our sister states does not rely on our slavish obedience to the so-called federal Congress.”

Angelica shakes her head. “Clinton may be an old goat, but he knows his stuff. He’s been at the top of New York politics for over a decade. He pushed Father out and he’ll force you out too, if you can’t be _smarter_ than you’re being right now. Do you, or do you not want to go to the convention?”  

“I do.”

“Then suck it up, buttercup. Clinton is the horse you’ve got to ride.”

“It’s so _clear_ , though,” he frets. “Why can’t they see that what we _need—_

“What we _need_ ,” interpolates Eliza, finishing a Prussian blue and orange bumblebee with a flourish and setting the embroidery aside. “Is to go home before Cook has to hold dinner back anymore. Where is Phillip?”

“Oh.” Angelica waves a hand, casts a meaningful glance at Eliza, sisterly communication in full force. “I actually told the boys, earlier, that Phillip could stay the night, if that’s okay with you guys. I meant to ask you when you got here but…”

“You were overwhelmed by the sheer strength of my animal magnetism?” Alexander smiles flirtatiously at Angelica and Eliza’s heart lightens. He’s back; Angelica always fixes things. She and Alex are so in synch, it’d be easy to be jealous, but instead it just feels right. _My family._   Coming here was a good decision. 

“You know it, pookie,” Angelica purses her lips and blows him an exaggerated kiss while Eliza laughs.

Coming to Angelica is always a good decision. _And Alex always comes home with me._

Eliza heads to the back of the house to say goodbye to Phillip—although the lure of cousins is strong he’ll likely never notice she’s gone. As she leaves the parlor she can hear Angelica talking to Alex, sharp and matter of fact.

“It was bad. With James.”

“Yeah.”

“Talk to your wife, Alexander”

XXXXX

 

The carriage ride back without Phillip is quiet; Angelica’s gift. Alex was never one to stand for quiet. Sooner or later, he’ll talk, just to fill it up.

It only takes a block.

“She never said, you know. My mother. People talked, but she never said.”

Eliza keeps silent, tilting her head to rest against the plush velvet of the arm of his coat, letting him work it out.

“I don’t look like my father, except maybe the nose, I think. I don’t really remember. But I do look like…Fuck damnit.”

She laces their hands together, runs her thumb up and down the firm length of his. He squeezes back, bare hand warming hers.

Eliza turns her face a little, letting her lips brush against the soft nap of his coat sleeve. “Phillip needs to be measured for new coats.”

He snorts an exhale. “Didn’t we just—?”

“Yes. Not two months ago, but he’s shot up again—eats like his father—and I don’t want him going to school looking shabby.” She says it teasingly, but his response is serious. Thoughtful.

“No, I don’t want that.”

“He’s excited. About school.”

Alexander smiles, leans his head wearily back against the cushions of the carriage. “Of course he is. More chances for mayhem. More ears to talk off.”

“Like his father.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s got a big heart like his father, too.”

He turns his head a little so that their foreheads rest together, his silky hair falling loose around their faces. “I think he gets that from his mother.”

Eliza encircles his wrist with her free hand, making a loose shackle and pressing his arm down into the seat, pinning him and holding him there.

He leans into the pressure and sighs, shoulders loosening; she keeps her hold on him as they fall into a comfortable silence. Alexander’s eyes drift shut. Eventually the carriage pulls to a stop in front of their house with a jar. He opens his eyes and she releases his wrist, untangling them.

Alex hops down from the carriage with his usual athletic grace, holds his hand out to help her down. As she steps to the sidewalk, he runs a thumb along the soft skin on the inside of her elbow and she thrills at the private signal, prickles of memory running down her nerve endings.

Eliza looks up at him. Eyes. He’s all eyes right now, soulful and deep.

She precedes him into the house, tugging at his hand, and they head unerringly upstairs. Just beyond the first landing, Eliza stops at the door to the nursery, eases it open and inhales the familiar powder-sour-sweet scent of baby. Alex’s arms slide around her as they gaze at their daughter, asleep under the watchful eye of her nursemaid.

Alex slides into the room past her, spares a smile for the maid, and gently curves a hand over baby Angelica’s skull, a bare caress of the small shell of her ear. After a pulsing moment, he retreats back to Eliza’s side and they quietly close the door behind them.

“I’ll write him a letter.” Alex says as they reach their bedroom. “James, I mean.”

She turns her back to him and he unhooks her bodice, then starts on her laces, each inch a careful tug and release. Goosebumps chase across her skin and he blows a hot stream of air on her nape. Her voice is husky when she responds. “That sounds like a good idea.”

She turns to face him, unbound and free, and brings her hands up to his face, tracing his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his lashes, his lips. He opens his mouth and sucks two of her wandering fingers in, deep, wet, inside of him. She closes her eyes at the decadent pull of the suction.

He pulls the pins out of her hair and it tumbles in free fall.

“It’ll be better if I write it out.” 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The timeline of Angelica-in-New-York and the birth years of the Hamilton kids are all the heck effed up in here, but LMM played fast and loose with that too, so I figure I’m safe.


	2. Rewind, Rewind...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting: “Rewind AU” — a world where Eliza stayed home sick the night of the Winter’s Ball and only two fundamental things were realized. 1786, during an AU Non-Stop.

He’s exactly the same during the day as he is at night. Mind and body, never relenting, always wanting to chase, be chased, give, take, consume her. Be consumed. At night, it’s the endless drive of their bodies, during the day he’s usually...

He’s pacing again.

Angelica rolls her eyes at the familiar habit. "You're going to wear out that part of the rug."

He grunts. Keeps walking.

Setting down the letter she’s writing to Peggy, she hops up and begins to pace alongside her husband.

“Active feet, active mind, eh Alex?” She bumps his shoulder with hers and he scoffs, but doesn't stop his perambulations, fingers tapping against his thigh in a familiar gesture.

They walk back and forth in front of the window of the family parlor a few more times. Back and forth, back and forth, Alex radiating nervous heat that she wants to lean into. He may want to avoid her, this afternoon, but being ignored is not on her agenda. Her place is beside him, matching him step for step; it has been since their first meeting at the ball, when they’d walked and danced laps around the room, verbally fencing, matching wits, delighting in each other.

Family obligations? — suddenly of shrinking importance. 

No social position? No prospects? — we'll make them.

She’d arrived at the ball by herself that night, and left knowing she’d never walk through life alone again. And she hasn’t. It hasn’t been easy, but they’re a team.

Angelica reaches down to twine her fingers with his still tapping ones. He gives her a brief squeeze, then disengages, throwing himself into one of the wing chairs that flank the fireplace.

Usually, they’re a team.

“What am I going to say, Jel? It’s been so long.”

“He was your _best_ friend, Alex. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.” She settles herself carefully on the arm of his chair, skirts billowing into his lap. “You’ve never really talked about—” _your family_ “—the island at all. What was it like being a child there?”

His mouth twists. “I was never a child. I sprung, fully formed, from the head of Zeus.”

“Funny, you don’t seem _nearly_ womanly enough for that.”

He gives her hip a shove and she gets off the chair, wandering around the room, straightening a picture on the mantle, toeing the curling edge of the Aubusson carpet down with her slipper, then pivoting sharply on her heel to face her brooding husband.

“You sure you don’t want to invite him to the party tonight?”

“Edward’s not interested in politics.”

“So he’s coming to speak to New York’s newest delegate to the Constitutional Convention in order to…?”

He doesn’t fill in the blank, not that she’d really expected him to at this point. Stubborn ass. 

A clatter of carriage wheels on the street outside announces an arrival. A tall, slender man, clad fashionably in wine-red velvet, hops down to the paving stones and makes his way to their front door.

“He’s here.”

Edward Stevens, her husband’s childhood best friend. The one and only part of his island life he has ever mentioned to her. For reasons she’s not very clear on, his father had taken Alex in at some point after his mother died, gotten him the job at the trading charter and helped set up the account that funded his education in New York.

Two months ago, Alex had received a letter from this cherished boyhood companion and immediately burnt it. In response to her questions—concerned at first, then eventually exasperated—he’d say only that Edward was coming to New York and would stop by for a visit.

Stubborn. Ass. 

Last night, in bed, he’d attacked her body ferociously, playing hot fingers over her, sinking in, down, deep, but evaded the questions she’d lobbed. She is still no closer to understanding the source of his obvious unease. It's a frustratingly unfamiliar sensation for Angelica; she usually understands him very well.

But now she'll get to the bottom of this; nothing stays hidden from her for long and Edward Stevens, mysterious childhood friend, is currently politely wiping his boots before entering her parlor. He's of medium build, an inch or two taller than Alex and with the same luxuriant dark hair. He doesn’t seem to share any of Alex’s trepidation at the meeting, wrapping her stiff husband in a big hug before turning smoothly to face her.

She smiles and holds her hand out to him. “Mr. Stevens—“

“Edward, please, ma’am.” 

“Angelica.”

He tilts his head at her teasingly and she is struck by the familiarity of the gesture. In an instant it all snaps together: The burnt letter. The old friend. Alex’s uncharacteristic silence.

_Oh Alex._

Stevens smiles at her pleasantly. “The power behind the Colonel, as your husband’s letters would have it.” He turns to Alexander, “Or is it the power behind the delegate, now? I heard the news on the packet over from New Jersey. Congratulations, man.”

Alex stands stock still and does not answer. A powder keg, about to explode. This is not going to end well. She spares a brief, wild thought of gladness that the kids are upstate with her father—away from the busy political season and the unhealthy air of the city in the summer.

Angelica sidles closer to her husband, answering for him. “Thanks.”

“My father would have been so proud to hear it.”

When Alex doesn’t answer, again, she keeps the conversation moving gamely forward, mind frantically calculating a way to get Stevens out, solve this for Alex, keep it from ever, ever hitting the papers. “We were so sorry to hear that he died. I know he meant a lot to Alex.”

Edward laughs sadly. “Yeah. Alex meant a lot to him too.”

Alex shakes his head mutely.

“He left you a bequest in his will, Alex.”

When her husband finally speaks, his voice is low and furious. “Yeah. You said in your letter. Your father was always kind to me.”

Edward gathers in a breath and Angelica tenses in horrified anticipation. “It was more than that, before he died, he tol—”

“Stop right the fuck there, Ed. I wrote you not to come here. Not with this.”

“Look man, I know—”

“You don’t know. I mean it. I don’t want to hear this.”

“Is that right?” Edward surges to his feet—another familiar gesture. _Oh shit._ “Too bad. We’ve been dancing around this for years. Decades. _Brother_.”

Boom goes the powder keg. The volume escalates. Angelica clamps down on an instinctive urge to intervene. Maybe it's better to let them get this out? Alexander may be beyond reason, anyway.  “I am NOT your brother! James Hamilton was my father. He may have been a shitty one, but he was mine, dammit.”

“Alex, we look exactly alike.”

“Coincidence. My mother wouldn’t lie to me that way.”

“We have the same damn eyes.”

“I have _my mother’s_ eyes you fucker and don’t you forget it!” Her husband is breathing like a bellows and the commotion has attracted the attention of the servants. Angelica catches the white flicker of the edge of Martha’s apron as she whips past the crack of the parlor door. If this gets out, it could be ruinous.

Okay, yeah, no more letting them fight this out.

“Hold up now!” Angelica claps her hands together, loudly, drawing the startled attention of both men. “That’s enough. Control yourselves.” She lets the cut glass edges of her political smile slice across her face. “Mr. Stevens. It was a pleasure to meet you. I know that you and Mr. Hamilton have a lot to talk about, but we have an engagement this evening. Perhaps this conversation can be continued another time? We'll be in touch.”

In the lull that follows, Alex seems to come back to himself a bit. He glances at the slightly agape parlor door and gives a little nod, the flush receding slightly from his neck.

Edward picks up his hat from the couch and makes a frosty bow in her direction, stalking angrily toward the door. Alexander follows him, trailing after him in a way that seems almost like muscle memory.

“Edward, you know—how could—” He shakes his head but doesn't manage to work the words free.

“He wanted you to know. You deserve to know.”

 

XXXX

 

Stevens leaves, the door shuddering hard from the almost slam he gives it. In the foyer, Alexander turns in three times in a small bewildered circle—a mutt looking for a safe place to rest that may not exist anymore.  

After a quick cut of his eyes toward hers, he makes for the parlor.

Angelica steps into his path. “Did your mother really—?”

“No, Angelica. No.”

He stops attempting to dodge around her, but he’s vibrating with the need to leave. To be somewhere else. “I mean, you’ve never said anything about her, even when I asked.” She stares at him, frustrated. She knows every corner and fold of his mind. Sometimes their thoughts are so close she feels like they’re intertwined, but she doesn’t know anything about his mother. Not even a hint. She balls her hands into fists at her side. This is a situation that demands bald truth from him. If he’s not willing to give it to her...

She angrily waves her hand. “Go. Leave. I know you want to. Take a half an hour. Work it out. Do whatever. Just remember to be back in time to dress for our party.”

He nods and turns on his heel, slamming the door loudly on his way out, off to god knows where.

 _You know exactly where he is going_.

 

XXXX

 

The party is her favorite type to host, a mixture of political minds and social elite. Not a ball, but not quite a Paris salon, either. Witty conversation, dancing, a chance for Alexander to advance his political agenda subtly, in a social setting.

Yeah, okay, a chance for _her_ to advance Alexander’s political agenda subtly in a social setting, while he winds up shouting at some portly veteran over the issue of taxes, probably.

The social moron in question had made it home, as promised, with enough time to put on his best claret velvet coat. When he steps out of the master bedroom to escort her down to greet the guests, the unconscious imitation of his friend’s ( _brother? Oh god.)_ sartorial choices makes Angelica slightly hysterical.

He looks good in it, too, hair swept back into a neat tail, the very image of a debonair politician, if only one looked past the set of his shoulders. He’s easier than he was when he left, but the hand on her waist is still perfunctory.

Downstairs, the guests arrive. In a trickle at first, then in a giant clump that includes Angelica’s sister Eliza and her husband, Jan van Rensselaer, a dough faced non-entity who Angelica loathes, but Eliza treats with a sweet fidelity. It’s hard not to look at Eliza’s blank space of a husband—rich and socially connected, but utterly void of any of the spark she so deserves—and not think that she’d settled. For the family. For, perhaps, other reasons that are best left unexamined.

At the sight of her sister, Alexander’s face lights up. That’s an always fun sock in the face. He bows deeply over Eliza’s hand and then leans in to kiss her on the cheek. “My gracious silence. Welcome.”

Angelica rolls her eyes as she receives her own courtly bow (sans kiss) from her brother-in-law. “You know, Coriolanus was referring to his _wife_ when he said that.”

“Well, you _are_ gracious, boo, but silent?” Alex screws up his face into a mocking question mark and Eliza laughs.

“Oh har har.”

Jan wanders off with a grunt— _probably in search of the port—_ leaving the three of them momentarily alone in the crowded, noisy room.

“Eliza,” Alex utters with wounded dignity. “I believe my wife thinks she got jokes.”

“No!”

“Yes.” He is mock serious as his eyes twinkle at Eliza and, through a genuine twinge of annoyance, Angelica feels a rush of love for her sister, the heart of the family. Like balm for whatever ails them.

“You know the solution?” Eliza asks. “Leave her to her own devices.”

Angelica shoos them away. “Go! And play nice. I have guests to convince that you are not a crazed monarchist.”

Alex extends his arm grandly to Eliza and she takes it. They proceed forward into the room together, Angelica trailing behind them. Eliza catches Angelica’s gaze behind Alexander’s back and she widens her eyes meaningfully in his direction, her brow creasing with a clear message.

_We need to talk._

If there had been any doubt as to where Alexander went when he slammed out of the house this afternoon, it has just been resolved. Angelica rolls her eyes a little and shakes her head, mouths “later,” at her sister and breaks away, steering herself in the direction of Robert Yates, rumored to be soon appointed one of New York’s other delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

While the evening progresses, Angelica works the room, keeping one eye on the everyone’s comfort—guests all happy and comfortable, political arguments pleasantly tense but not boiling over—and the other on Alexander.

He starts out huddled in a corner with Eliza, who is plying him with domestic chatter in that comforting sisterly way she has. Allowing him to pay her gallantries, laughing at his jokes. On one swing around the room, she can hear them laughing about the size of Mrs. Jamieson’s turban.

Eliza is a necessary emotional center for him—a balancing point. She, herself is too, in many ways, but Alexander being what he is, he could never be satisfied with just one. Angelica has known that from the beginning; it's part of what she accepted when she chose to toss over social convention and family expectation to marry him. 

Clocking the exact moment when Alex’s shoulders settle looser and the laugh becomes a real laugh, not a desperately-trying-to-be-real laugh, Angelica swoops in, “I’ll just steal my husband back, if that’s not too big of an imposition, Sis.”

Eliza raises her eyebrows teasingly. “You jelly, Jelly?”

“Damn right, you know I don’t share well.”  The sisters smile at the old joke. And it is a joke. It’s easier if it’s a joke. 

Alex allows himself to get taken up by a group of men on the board of his bank—the Bank of New York—and appears, by all indications, to be in good form. He and Yates shout at each other for a while until Alex executes a swift verbal takedown and Yates stalks off. Angelica makes some progress with a few other key guests, though, and the music and dancing is well received by all.

Alex disappears as the last of the guests leaves, just after midnight, leaving Angelica alone with the bones of the evening. As the door closes behind them, she flops into a chair, wearily, picking up an empty punch glass now bearing a slight chip on its rim. She absently runs the tips of her fingers over and over the flaw. Smooth glass. Rough. Smooth. Rough.

Alex might not ever be in full accord with the other members of the delegation, but if he would just antagonize them a little less…real good could be done. A true revolution.

Lansing had seemed open to overtures, even if Yates wasn’t. And she’d seen Mayhew and Van Cortlandt talking several times… _that_ could be an interesting alliance. If they would sign on to the tax plan… Angelica curls her aching feet inside her high-heeled shoes. Everything went well; normally she’d be feeling that pleasant exhaustion of a successful event. Also normally, she’d be hashing all of this out with her husband.

Her mysteriously absent husband who could only be…She sets the cup down on the arm of the chair, levers herself to her feet and walks upstairs.

He’s at his desk, still in his party clothes: coat off, shirtsleeves rolled up, glasses on. The pen scratches across the paper and he doesn’t look up, although she knows he’s aware of her presence.

The door of his office was open, though. It’s something.

She leans against the doorjamb. “What are you working on?”

“An article for the _The Journal_. Supporting funding for the federal Congress. Lansing said something tonight and I think—”

“Am I gonna get to read it?”

He takes off his glasses, sets them on a precarious stack of papers. “Of course, but not until I’ve got it down. You know that.”

She crosses her arms. Steps into the room. “About your mother.”

He picks the pen back up. Glasses back on. “I’m not in the mood, Jel.”

“You had your mood earlier. I gave you space. Now I want to know what is going on. Is what he said true?”

“It’s not true.”

“Alex, he looks…”

“I know.” Curt. Alex is never curt.

“You know what, it doesn’t even matter. Will he talk about it? Do we need to get out in front of this?”

 “It doesn’t _matter_?” He laughs, bleakly. “Of course it doesn’t matter.”

Angelica strides forward and takes his face between her hands in a gesture of command. Takes his glasses gently off and tucks them into the bodice of her dress. “It _doesn’t_ matter. _We’re_ the Hamiltons, Alex. We are. You made the name worth something, I took it, the kids were born to it; it’s ours now, and people _will_ remember it.” He’s gathering himself for another bout of words, but she’s said her piece. “Enough now. I’m going to sleep. Figure it out, Alexander. Come to bed when you do.”

 

XXXX

 

The thump and shake of the mattress as he eases between the sheets wakes her. Grey filtering light through the bed curtains. It’s almost dawn.

Alex reaches out, slides a hand under the shift she wears to bed and leaves it resting, warm, on her hip.

Angelica turns over and climbs on top of him, trapping him beneath her the way she knows he likes, feeling him, naked, between her bracketing thighs. Alex bares his neck to her in an arc, a familiar request, a signal, so she gently sets her teeth on either side of his jugular. Bites down. Darts her tongue out to lick the compressed skin. He tastes like salt and the dry dust of parchment. 

He shudders and groans beneath her and she releases him. Sits back a little until they’re looking each other in the face.

“She…” He licks his lips, stares at her with those eyes. “My mother she…”

He’s had his quarter, his tender comfort. She won’t release his gaze or let him off the hook.

“It might be true. She never said, but we do look alike, Edward and I.”

“You do.” Angelica sets a kiss over the slightly red patch of bitten skin.

“I’ll never know, will I?”

“You won’t.”

His hands slides down her hips, nails digging in, he reaches between their bodies and she gasps, the familiar heat filling her up. His fingers are hungry on her and there’s burning knowledge that this, at least, he can’t get anywhere else.

“Edward won’t talk.”

“Good.” She gasps. “We’d have to do a lot of damage control if it came out. You know I hate damage control.” He twists under her, seeking more contact. “You should talk to him, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Write a letter. ” She bites his pectoral and shifts up and over him, aligning, sliding smoothly down, “You’re better in print.”  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> History Stuff: 
> 
> Alexander Hamilton did have an older brother, James, who stayed behind on St. Croix when he fled the island. According to Chernow, the two continued to communicate via letter, although with long gaps between letters that suggest an estrangement. James’ last letter came in 1785, begging for money, and Hamilton’s reply still exists. According to Chernow he addresses his brother with “an affecting eagerness” to help. In all likelihood, James died in St. Thomas the year after this letter was sent. I have him, instead, visiting Alex the following year in New York. 
> 
> When James was apprenticed to a carpenter at a young age, Alexander was taken in by a well-to-do merchant, Thomas Stevens, for reasons that aren’t fully known. The striking resemblance between A. Ham and Stevens’ son Edward was widely remarked upon. As a youth, Edward was also sent to study (medicine) in New York, but he returned to the islands afterwards. He and Hamilton remained close and, when he moved back to the United States after the Revolution, Stevens saved Alexander’s and Eliza’s lives life when they almost died of yellow fever. 
> 
> Hamilton’s father (also James), who I killed off early in both chapters for story reasons, did not actually die until 1799. He died penniless on St. Vincent and did not leave his sons anything.

**Author's Note:**

> So many, many thanks to the inimitable [ghostcat3000](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat) for her enthusiasm, ass-kicking, and incisive beta advice. Anything in here that is even remotely in character or interesting is down to her prodding. The only reason this isn't better is because she didn't write it.
> 
> Thanks, also, to [marshmallowtasha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowtasha/pseuds/marshmallowtasha), for giving this her usual thorough and thoroughly helpful read, even though she doesn't even go here.


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